How to find the Most Recent Appraisal

Question

Hi.

Is there a way to obtain (buy) access to the most recent Appraisal which was done on a property?

Do any states require appraisals to be recorded when performed?

And are actual appraisals done for tax assessment purposes, and are the details of those available?

Depending on how accurate you need the appraisal to be, it seems silly and wasteful to request an appraisal if one was performed recently.  Thanks!

Christopher Phillips · Answer

Appraisals are the property of the people that paid for them. They aren't archived for the public anywhere. Also, they are only good on the day they were created.

Assessments lag too much in time to be of any value and in most cases the assessor doesn't enter the house or visit the area. Assessments can also have a factor applied to them that makes them very different from market value.

On a related note, appraisals are usually close to the contract price, because they are designed to justify the contract for the bank. For refinances, the appraisals tend to come in high to support the LTV.

So, in most cases, you really want your own new appraisal, especially in a hot market with a lot of changes... The one exception is with FHA appraisals. They are given a case number and stick to the house for 120 days and can be transferred to another FHA buyer. But that has its own risks if the original appraisal came in low and you are forced to come up with the difference in cash.

JD Martin · Answer

I don't know about Virgina but there's no appraisals filed here in Tennessee. The appraisal reports are only useful for the bank and property owners. As for tax assessments, those are performed independently by the county tax assessor (every 3 years here), using a combination of market data, historical records, county budget needs and voodoo.

Christopher Phillips · Answer

Depending on what's in the appraisal, there is an issue of confidentiality. So, it can make it difficult to ever get the report except if you are the client that ordered it. So, if a buyer's lender orders an appraisal, the lender and the buyer will get a copy, but not the seller.

In the case of the FHA appraisal, they created "portability" to prevent lender shopping to find the highest appraisal.

So, for FHA, if a borrower switches lenders, the first lender is obligated to transfer the appraisal to the new lender.

For a FHA appraisal and the deal fell through, the case number is still associated with that property for 120 days if other FHA borrowers want to purchase the house.

Geoff Bishop · Answer

Thanks, Chris.  Based on your response, and the following article, in the case of FHA, it sounds like you CAN get a previous appraisal, but it takes some work...

Article about obtaining FHA Appraisals

How to find the Most Recent Appraisal

Most Popular Reply